Red lion - pubs and things
"The truth is that there is no single, easy answer to the origin of the Red Lion, such as “James I”, or “John of Gaunt”, but a multitude of answers, each one particular to a particular place. Each pub will have been called the Red Lion for its own specific reason, generally connected to specifically local concerns."
Martyn Cornell
One of my guilty pleasures in life is to watch Would I Lie to You? - and English panel game in which the contestants tell tall stories and the others have to guess whether it's true or not. It's often very funny.
The one we watched the other day included a story of the guy telling the story of visiting every Red Lion pub within the M25 with his friend in a week. He said there were 43 (I think it was 43 - 40 something anyway) and they missed four of them. Which got me to thinking about pub names. We're not very adventurous here in Australia are we? Not that the English are much better. They certainly have their favourites anyway and The Red Lion is obviously one of them.
When I was a child we used to go for Sunday drives - I think they were called Rosemary's rambles because I would look at a map and plot a route that took us down tiny lanes and roads, occasionally through fords, in the Essex countryside. Like where I live now on the edge of Melbourne, we lived on the edge of London really. A short drive and you were in the country. And then we used to drive to my grandmother sometimes, or my uncle. Anyway on these drives we sometimes stopped at a little country pub. My mother and father would go inside and have a drink and we would either stay in the car or go into the garden of the pub where we would be treated to a glass of lemonade and some Smith's crisps, which contained little blue sachets of salt.
But the main thing about pubs that I remember in the context of this post is that one of the things my parents tried to entertain us with on longish drives was to write down all the names of the pubs we passed. Some were really unusual - can't think of any at the moment and some were ordinary. And the name The Red Lion is apparently one of the most common - some would say the most common. One said it was the second most common after The Crown. Personally I would have thought it was the King or Queen's Head or The White Hart, but who am I to say?
The Red Lion is certainly common though. And here are some of them.
The top three represent the most common kind of picture - almost always a lion rampant, as they say. That's standing up on its hind legs with lots of spiky bits. The others are rather more original. Interestingly there does not seem to be one Red Lion pub in Melbourne, but as I say, the Australians are not all that original when it comes to naming pubs - they tend to be named after places or people. All we have her is The Eltham Hotel.
But why the red lion? Why red rather than black or gold or silver or even pink? I did find pictures of almost every colour (not silver interestingly). I cannot really say why red. I tried to find out but the best answer I found was that the lion, of course, was a common heraldic device - king of the beasts and all that - and so lots of people had it on their coats of arms, so to differentiate themselves they started using different colours.
And why so many red lion pubs? Again here opinions differ but the best explanation is the one at the top of the page. The John of Gaunt idea is from John of Gaunt, who through his grandson (Henry VII) is the father of the British royal family. His second wife was Spanish and her coat of arms had a red lion. But he was not a popular man, so it is unlikely that the people would have named pubs for him. James ! of England is the other popular source. The red lion is on the Royal Standard of Scotland - James I was also king of Scotland remember - and here it is.
The story goes that when he became King of England he ordered that the Scottish Royal Standard be put up on important buildings. Pubs? And really you wouldn't want to push the Scottish thing at the time would you? Another idea is that when aristocrats travelled they put up their coat of arms to show they were in residence, and if they stayed at the same places often then that place might have used the image on the coat of arms for their pub to show their aristocratic patronage. More likely, but you would also think you might name it after the patron - the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of York ... but I think I'm with Martin Cornell in thinking that each English Red Lion pub has it's own reasons for being the Red Lion.
My home town of Hornchurch in England was also very unoriginal in its pub names. There were a few pubs but I only remember three. The Railway Hotel - yes you guessed it - it was near the railway into London, and I passed it every day on my way to school. And a very unexciting building it was too. It just looks like a large house really.
Then there was The White Hart - another extremely common name which was on a sort of traffic island at a crossroads - well a meeting of four roads. I gather it is now a restaurant with a different name. The two pictures below show it at about the time I knew it. Also very unprepossessing. In the one on the right the road leading out of the picture led to our house and we used to catch the bus to school opposite the pub, outside the shops (one was a shoe shop), every morning. And we bought fish and chips from a shop behind the pub and fish from a shop on the right somewhere I think.
And finally there is the prettiest and oldest - The King's Head - now a pizza place, but still preserved, indeed rebuilt after a fire. This one was on the road to Upminster and also to the church that gives Hornchurch its name. Apparently when it was built there was a brewery just opposite so that they could roll the beer across the road from the brewery to the pub. Not an original name though. And I don't know which king it is named for either.
I wish I could remember some of those uncommon names we saw along the road though. And sadly pubs are disappearing from the English scene I am told. There are lots of people busily recording their history online though. There is a whole article on The History of the Pubs of Hornchurch by one Tony Benton. And lots of photos too.
